siput sedut
or cerithidea obtusa
stuck on mud deep at the sungei banks,
sucking fresh filtrate, as and when the
rush flows through this pulau Semakau,
growing from the memory of swamps, paddies,
bending in nakedness at receding cover,
crawling up the cavernous bark and
leaping back into the mud, all this
creeping to avoid the lost prying and
foraging, watching the violent
tonguing of innards, kissing of orifices, yet
languishing at the sudden intrusion of peace,
wondering where all these people of the sea
have gone.
han-puri
Glimmerings are what the soul’s composed of…
—Seamus Heaney, ‘Shelf Life’
finding the pit demanding to expunge,
her body arches, instinct of a turn
and turn to the constant beating of drums,
slowly easing muscle, her loosened back
uncoiled as if a spring had come undone,
passageway opened from mouth to heart,
burbling song as fresh as it was ancient,
enough for claps and tears and sways and on,
the severance of impulse yet unfinished,
wailing swallows up a hand on pulpits,
red and yellow folds of fabric swapped,
collars white and starched proceed a ritual
earth sensed as if a smaller sphere or kernel,
her soul’s long road shall slowly turn to joy.
sui generis
after Graham Greene
the dream of sublimation, this mass too heavy a
burden to muster, the dissolution into vapour,
wisps borne up by a gust of angels. saints couldn’t
fathom the incorporeal, the instant shock
of vanishing, the dance of atoms engulfed. and you,
bowing under this glassy weight, desire, ashen with
what is and isn’t, the sudden rush and trickle of blood,
you sense that entropic reverse, foundations laid and
seas shut and wombs formed and at once: the cries, the cries.
Jonathan Chan is a writer and editor of poems and essays. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore and educated at Cambridge and Yale Universities. He is the author of the poetry collection going home (Landmark, 2022). He has recently been moved by the work of Lucille Clifton, Christian Wiman, and Wong May. He has an abiding interest in faith, identity, and creative expression. More at jonbcy.wordpress.com
